THE  STORY  OF  WHITE  ROCK 

Bys  Francis  R.  Bellamy 


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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


THE  COLLECTION  OF 
NORTH  CAROLINIANA 

PRESENTED  BY 

Lois  Bacon 


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THE  STORY   OF 
WHITE  ROCK 


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FRANCIS  R.  BELLAMY 


The  Laurel  Hospital,  White  Rock.,  North  Car o In 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


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THE  STORYvOF  WHITE  ROCK 

by 
Francis  R.   Bellamy 

RODE  up  a  narrow  trail  in  the  North  Carolina 
mountains.  I  was  some  twenty  miles  from  the 
nearest  railroad.  The  road  had  been  dwindling 
steadily  for  some  hours,  as  it  took  its  way  over 
ridge  after  ridge,  followed  stream  after  stream,  crossed 
bridge  after  bridge  and  climbed  steadily  toward  the  land  of 
the  sky.  About  us  for  hours  had  been  only  the  precipitous 
landscape  of  the  mountains:  rocky  creeks  and  steep  hills, 
soft,  weatherbeaten  log  cabins  set  along  watercourses  that 
scarred  the  wooded  slopes,  a  changing  vista  of  forest  and 
sky. 

And  then  abruptly,  we  rounded  a  shoulder  of  the  hills 
and  stretched  out  before  us,  shimmering  in  the  late  after- 
noon sunlight,  lay  an  open  valley  in  whose  center  stood  a 
large  modern  building.  Beyond,  as  behind,  stretched  a 
wilderness.  Far  up  above  us  towered  a  half  cleared  moun- 
tain. But  in  the  valley  stood  the  surprising  building,  ac- 
companied by  a  couple  of  modern  houses  and  an  up-to-date 
white  schoolhouse  with  a  steeple. 

I  stared  at  it  with  considerable  surprise. 

"Who  ever  dragged  all  this  material  up  here  and  built 
this  place?     And  why?"     I  inquired. 

"That's  Laurel  hospital,"  said  my  guide.  "White 
Rock." 

Three  days  later  I  had  the  story.   .   .   . 

A  number  of  persons  had  a  hand  in  it — Dr.  Warren  H. 
Wilson  and  Dr.  W.  E.  Finley  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of 
Home  Missions,  the  late  John  C.  Campbell  of  the  Russell 
Sage  Foundation  and  many  others,  but  my  story  is  not  about 
these,  splendid  and  de\roted  though  their  help  has  been,  or 
even  about  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Home  Missions  which 

3 


<V 


Dr.  George  H.   Packard 


has  general  oversight  of  the  hospital  and  of  other  construc- 
tive, healthful,  educational  and  religious  work  in  these 
mountains.  My  story  is  rather  about  two  persons  who  have 
put  their  lives  into  this  enterprise  and  have  given  all  they 
had  to  its  success. 

Some  twenty  years  ago — I  learned — up  in  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  a  minister's  daughter  by  the  name  of  Frances  Good- 
rich became  interested  in  the  home  mission  work  of  her 
father's  church.  It  was  the  day  of  the  starting  of  the 
Settlement  houses  in  many  of  our  great  cities.  But  this 
young  girl's  mind  had  been  aroused  in  a  different  direction. 
She  had  visited  a  girl's  school  in  Asheville,  North  Caro- 
lina, and  become  acquainted  there  with  some  of  the  girls 
who  came  to  school  from  the  mountain  regions  of  the  South. 
The  things  they  told  her  about  their  lives  and  homes  aroused 
a  great  desire  in  her  to  help  them  in  the  efforts  they  were 
planning  to  make  to  take  education  and  happiness  and 
health  back  with  them  into  the  mountains,  once  their  school 
days  were  over.  They  invited  her  to  come  and  visit  them. 
She  accepted.  And  for  a  summer  she  lived  in  the  moun- 
tains. 

She  found  there  the  conditions  which  the  girls  had  de- 
scribed— conditions  which  were  typical  of  the  southern 
mountains  twenty  years  ago:  poor  but  beautiful  log  cabins, 
with  little  patches  of  tobacco  and  corn,  set  in  remote 
wooded,  mountain  valleys,  cut  off  from  the  outside  world 
by  impassable  roads  and  creeks,  and  inhabited  by  a  pure 
Scotch-Irish  race  struggling  against  primitive  conditions, 
but  possessed  of  some  of  the  best  blood  of  America,  if  only 
given  a  chance.  The  same  blood  from  which  Abraham 
Lincoln  came — a  blood  that  hungered  for  education  and  a 
chance  and  yet  found  no  opportunity. 

She  found  that  the  average  length  of  the  school  term 
in  most  of  the  valleys  was  from  three  to  six  weeks  a  year, 
according  to  the  size  of  the  school  fund  and  the  salary  paid 
to  the  so-called  teacher.  Twenty-five  to  fifty  dollars  was 
the  usual  sum  set  aside  for  education  in  these  valleys.     And 

5 


Real  Christian  service — carrying  healing  and  Christian  friendship  to 
mountain  home  thirty  miles  from  a  railroad. 


out  of  that  came  the  pay  for  the  teacher  and  the  wood  for 
the  fire  and  all  the  other  things  that  were  necessary!  Many 
of  the  teachers  were  men  and  women  of  the  neighborhood 
who  had  never  learned  to  read  or  write  themselves.  The 
pupils  were  growing  up  no  better  off. 

The  case  of  the  mothers  of  these  pupils  was  even  worse. 

Marriage  came  early  in  the  mountains.  And  with  mar- 
riage the  woman  not  only  bore  the  children  and  did  the 
housework,  but  split  the  wood,  drew  the  water,  hoed  the 
garden  and  worked  in  the  fields  with  her  husband,  in  an 
effort  to  wrest  a  living  from  the  sterile  soil.  At  thirty  a 
woman  was  often  old,  and  hope  and  beauty  had  died  to- 
gether. And  so  hard  was  the  life  and  so  scarce  was  money, 
that  for  men,  women  and  children,  education  seldom 
opened  the  book  of  dreams  from  childhood  to  the  grave. 
Only  here  and  there  an  exceptional  person  learned  to  read 
the  Bible  and  either  became  a  woods  preacher  or  the  head 

6 


of  his  clan.  As  for  the  rest,  old  age  found  them  just 
'a-settin,"  staring  dimly  across  the  mountains  waiting  for 
death,  unable  to  read,  unable  to  write,  alone  with  their 
thoughts — while  for  their  children  the  same  weary  cycle 
started  over  again  once  more. 

The  thing  burnt  itself  deep  into  the  soul  of  Frances 
Goodrich.  Here  was  a  need  which  was  crying  to  be  met. 
It  was  only  a  question  of  some  one  really  doing  something 
about  it.  It  would  mean  a  great  deal  to  these  children  if 
some  one  would  merely  supplement  the  meagre  school  funds 
so  that  a  real  teacher  could  be  brought  in  to  teach  school 
all  winter  through.  Why  could  she  not  do  that?  Begin  a 
new  kind  of  home  mission  work  by  bringing  the  light  of 
knowledge  to  these  little  children  of  the  mountains? 

When  she  went  north  that  first  year  she  had  decided 
that  she  could.  She  did  not  rest  either  until  she  had  begged 
from  her  father's  church  and  from  other  interested  people 


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enough  money  to  support  one  teacher  tor  a  year  in  the 
mountain  hamlet  of  Riceville.  And  with  the  teacher  she 
herself  went,  resolved  to  live  in  these  mountains  herself 
until  she  understood  her  new  neighbors  and  understood 
just  what  their  problems  were. 

By  the  end  of  winter  she  knew  she  was  on  the  right 
track  and  had  evolved  a  definite  plan  lor  social  work  in 
the  mountains.  She  would  bring  a  teacher  into  every 
mountain  community  that  needed  one  and  had  not  the 
money.  She  would  build  a  house  where  none  existed  in 
which  the  teacher  could  live.  More,  she  would  persuade 
a  community  worker  to  come  and  live  with  each  teacher  as  a 
companion — a  community  worker  who  could  help  the  wo- 
men who  were  too  old  now  to  go  to  school.  She  herself 
could  teach  the  children  the  things  she  had  been  taught, 
Presbyterian  Sunday  School  and  all.  Perhaps,  too,  the 
community  workers  might  be  able  to  help  revive  the  old 
household  arts  of  sewing  and  weaving  and  basketry  which 
some  mountain  homes  still  practised.  She  and  her  helpers 
might  not  be  able  to  teach  the  women  of  the  mountains  to 
make  cornbread  any  better,  but  they  could  teach  them  how 
to  dye  and  make  over  old  men's  clothes  into  children's 
garments,  they  could  show  them  how  to  can  beans  so  that 
the  product  did  not  turn  sour — they  could  show  them  a 
good  many  things.  Above  all,  they  could  bring  the  light 
of  knowledge  into  the  hills  and  stir  the  imaginations  of  the 
hill  people  to  "do  for  themselves."  Where  money  was  in 
question,  she  could  certainly  count  upon  her  father's  church 
— that  was  already  back  of  her — and  in  time  other  Presby- 
terian churches  which  approved  of  such  work. 

For  fifteen  years,  then,  she  carried  out  that  plan,  win- 
ning the  confidence  of  the  mountain  people,  supporting 
their  schools  and  standing  back  of  them,  meeting  little 
groups  of  strange  men  in  isolated  cabins  to  explain  her  pur- 
poses and  to  demand  their  school  funds,  establishing  Sun- 
day schools  here  and  there,  gathering  about  her  many  de- 
voted followers.     In  one  isolated  vallev  after  another  she 


built  her  houses.  From  church  after  church  in  the  East 
she  begged  her  money  and  supplies.  Year  after  year  she 
went  about  the  mountains  on  her  faithful  horse,  minister- 
ing, building,  teaching,  pushing  on  her  idea  with  unflagging 
courage — a  veritable  little  Bishop  of  Laurel,  as  they  call 
her  in  the  mountains  today.  It  is  a  tribute  both  to  her 
character  and  to  the  chivalry  of  the  mountains  that  never 
once  in  those  years  of  solitary  living,  alone  except  for  other 
women,  never  once  in  those  years  of  following  the  lonely 
trails  was  she  ever  attacked  or  even  threatened. 

There  comes  a  day,  however,  to  every  pioneer  when  he 
realizes  that  he  has  come  as  far  as  he  can.  It  was  one  day 
about  eight  years  ago  that  Miss  Goodrich  realized  it. 
Educationally,  the  road  had  been  cleared.  But  what  her 
mountain  neighbors  needed  as  badly  as  anything  now,  she 
realized,  was  a  doctor.  She  and  her  little  case  of  simple 
medicines  had  never  made  any  impression  on  the  mist  of 
ignorance  about  health  and  sanitation  and  cleanliness 
which  pervade  the  hills.  That  conviction  had  been  slowly 
growing  on  her  for  years,  borne  in  upon  her  unforgettably  on 
days  when  she  had  been  forced  to  "lay  out"  corpses  herself 
in  remote  ridges,  on  nights  when  she  had  had  to  nurse 
some  child  through  a  terrible  fever  in  an  isolated  cabin,  with 
little  knowledge  and  no  helps  of  any  kind. 

Would  it  be  possible,  she  wondered,  to  persuade  a  really 
good  doctor  to  come  down  in  these  mountains  as  her  part- 
ner? No  ordinary  man  would  come,  she  knew — and  only 
an  unusual  man  would  be  of  the  slightest  use.  Where  could 
she  find  such  a  man? 

For  a  good  many  months  she  tried  in  vain  to  find  such  a 
man.  And  then  one  day  Providence  sent  a  friend  to  a 
private  hospital  in  a  pleasant  suburban  town  in  distant 
Massachusetts — Medford,  just  outside  Boston.  To  Dr. 
Packard,  the  head  of  the  hospital,  her  friend  told  the  story 
of  Frances  Goodrich,  and  Dr.  Packard  listened  with  an  odd 
lump  in  his  throat.  His  own  wife  had  been  a  missionary 
in  China  all  through  the  Boxer  trouble  and  he  knew  what 


It  was  for  children  like  these  that  Miss  Goodrich  sought  schools  and  a  hospital 


such  work  meant,  even  if  he  was  a  Boston  doctor,  doing 
dispensary  work  in  the  city  and  running  a  private  hospital 
in  Medford. 

The  thing  made  so  great  an  impression  on  him  that  a 
few  weeks  later  he  talked  to  Miss  Goodrich  herself.  That 
same  fall  found  himself  and  his  wife  driving  into  the  North 
Carolina  mountains,  seeing  for  themselves  what  sort  of 
place  Laurel  was,  and  wondering,  in  the  cold,  foggy  October 
day,  if  they  would  have  the  courage  Frances  Goodrich  had 
had  to  come  and  live  here,  cut  off  from  all  civilization.  Six 
months  later  they  had  given  up  the  hospital  in  Medford, 
said  goodbye  to  New  England,  and  were  on  their  way  into 
the  mountains,  almost  before  spring  had  ceased  swelling  the 
creeks  and  the  rhododendron  and  laurel  had  begun  to  bloom 
on  the  mountain  sides. 

Frances  Goodrich  had  found  her  partner. 

At  first  glance,  one  might  be  inclined  to  assume  that  for 
Dr.  Packard  the  way  had  been  made  easy,  that  Frances 
Goodrich's  doctor  had  only  to  step  into  the  niche  which  she 
had  created  for  him  in  the  minds  of  the  mountain  folk. 
But  nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  Probably  not 
even  Packard  himself  realized  the  complexities  and  hard- 
ships of  the  job  he  had  taken  upon  himself  until  he  started 
to  unpack  his  belongings  in  the  house  in  the  valley  at  Al- 
legheny, and  looked  around  at  the  mere  physical  difficulties 
of  his  own  household.  Pioneering,  thirty  miles  from  a  rail- 
way, with  only  a  saddle  horse  as  a  means  of  communication, 
was  not  going  to  be  an  easy  task,  in  any  event. 

And  that  was  not  his  real  job,  of  course.  The  real  job 
was  going  to  be  the  endless  trouble  and  difficulty  of  winning 
the  confidence  of  these  new  neighbors  and  prospective  pa- 
tients of  his,  rendered  suspicious  and  hostile  by  their  gen- 
erations of  solitude  and  loneliness,  and  by  their  experience 
with  unscrupulous  strangers. 

Disregarding  all  the  stories  of  blood  feuds  and  shootings 
and  suspicion  of  strangers,  the  primitive  conditions  of  dirt 
and  ignorance  under  which  he  would  have  to  work — why,  to 

11 


be  a  doctor  at  all,  even  to  minister  to  these  people,  leav- 
ing out  all  question  of  failure  or  success,  was  going  to  be 
a  job  that  would  tax  all  his  powers,  both  human  and  pro- 
fessional. There  had  never  been  a  real  doctor  living  in  these 
mountains;  only  an  occasional  travelling  quack  who  had 
salves  and  doses  for  a  quarter  a  throw.  He  would  have  to 
educate  the  mountains  to  what  a  real  doctor  was! 

And  yet  he  could  see  already  the  cycle  of  progress  which 
Frances  Goodrich  and  her  friends  had  set  in  motion.  In 
some  places  already  the  townships  were  raising  more  and 
more  money  for  their  own  schools,  the  length  of  time  teach- 
ers must  be  supported  from  outside  was  growing  shorter, 
graduates  of  Miss  Goodrich's  own  schools  were  returning 
from  the  Normal  School  at  Asheville  themselves  to  teach 
in  the  mountain  schools.  The  ideas  which  she  had  preached 
in  the  early  days  were  showing  in  the  great  fairs  and  com- 
munity work  of  the  more  wide  awake  valleys  and  towns, 
while  the  old  household  arts,  such  as  weaving  and  basketry 
and  the  like,  had  become  an  established  industry  that 
brought  money  back  in  the  hills  year  after  year.  The 
mist  of  ignorance  was  decidedly  rising  as  education  came 
slowly  and  surely  into  the  homes.  He  need  only  to  begin 
somehow,  somewhere,  to  set  in  motion  his  own  cycle  of 
health  and  the  fight  against  disease.  And  in  time,  whether 
in  his  lifetime  or  another's,  the  rest  would  follow. 

And  so  he  began. 

The  first  call  came  almost  at  once:  a  woman  at  the  door, 
asking  his  wife  for  help — asking  if  he  weren't  the  new 
"fotched-in"  doctor  from  out  of  the  mountains — begging  for 
help  for  a  woman  in  the  throes  of  childbirth  down  the  val- 
ley.    And  he  saddled  his  horse  and  set  out. 

A  halloo  at  midnight,  about  three  days  later,  a  call  from 
some  mounted  men  who  sat  their  horses  outside  his  gate  in 
the  moonlight — strangers  stand  outside  the  gate  in  the  North 
Carolina  mountains! — and  after  his  first  moment  of  sus- 
picion of  his  visitors,  he  knew  he  had  his  second  call.  An 
hour  later  he  found  himself  cutting  a  bullet  from  a  badly 

12 


hurt  leg  in  the  center  of  a  group  of  men  at  a  wedding  cele- 
bration in  a  cabin  miles  back  in  the  hills,  where  he  knew  no 
one  in  sight  and  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  have  found  the 
mountain  road  back  to  his  own  home  in  Allegheny.  The 
guests  had  begun  shooting  humorously  at  each  other's  feet 
and  in  the  excitement  someone  had  made  a  mistake. 

Soon,  then,  he  found  he  was  in  it.  Only  a  volume,  in- 
deed, could  ever  do  justice  to  those  first  months  on  Laurel, 
as  he  rode  over  the  mountains  by  day  and  by  night,  into 
distant  coves,  sometimes  in  icy  sleet  that  made  his  stirrups, 
useless  and  his  body  a  frozen  burden,  sometimes  in  the 
terrific  downpours  of  the  mountain  storms,  in  pitch  dark 
night  when  he  could  not  see  his  own  horse's  head  before 
him.  Few  nights  then  when  he  could  sleep  the  night 
through  or  when  he  could  be  sure  of  a  moment  at  home. 

A  widespread  custom  in  the  mountains  of  waiting  until 
nightfall  to  see  if  the  patient  might  not  be  better,  before 
riding  over  the  mountains  to  call  the  doctor!  An  almost 
universal  habit,  too,  of  waiting  until  disease  had  definitely 
gotten  the  upper  hand  and  death  appeared  as  an  imminent 
danger,  before  calling  the  doctor! 

And  yet  before  the  first  few  months  were  over,  Dr. 
Packard  knew  that  he  would  never  leave  the  mountains 
now,  until  he  had  succeeded.  By  fall,  indeed,  for  him  the 
struggle  had  resolved  itself  quite  definitely  into  just  two 
things:  an  iron  resolve  to  win  these  new  friends  of  his,  and 
then  to  build  them  a  hospital.  He  could  almost  feel  the 
wall  of  suspicion  now,  of  course.  He  could  feel  it  in  the  way 
some  people  tried  to  catch  him  in  misstatements,  however 
slight.  He  could  feel  it  in  the  efforts  that  were  made  to 
find  him  at  fault  in  his  diagnoses  and  treatments,  in  the  dim 
hints  he  heard  from  some  of  his  faithful  neighbors  that  his 
sanity,  even,  had  been  brought  into  question. 

Why  did  this  stranger  come  in  to  doctor  up  Laurel — the 
suspicious  inquired — if  he  meant  what  he  said:  that  he  did 
not  do  it  for  money?  He  charged  fees  in  spite  of  that,  did 
he  not?     Fifty  cents  or  a  dollar  for  a  call,  and  maybe  just 

13 


a  word  or  two!  The  little  Bishop  of  Laurel  had  never 
done  that. 

That  was  the  mutter  among  the  suspicious,  back  in  the 
mountains. 

But  he  would  overcome  that,  Packard  had  decided;  and 
then  he  would  build  a  hospital  here  as  he  and  Miss  Good- 
rich had  often  talked  beside  the  fire  in  her  house.  For 
only  a  hospital  would  ever  really  solve  the  health  problem 
for  these  mountain  settlements — a  place  where  the  sick 
and  injured  could  be  brought  at  once  to  be  cared  for  by  a 
nurse,  and  washed  clean  and  given  proper  food.  It  was 
fifty  miles  to  Asheville,  the  nearest  hospital,  now.  And 
half  his  struggle  was  against  the  frightful  soot  and  manure 
which  terrified  relatives  thrust  into  cuts  and  wounds  be- 
cause there  was  no  place  to  take  the  sufferer;  against  the 
greasy  food  which  was  poured  into  weak,  ill  stomachs; 
against  the  ignorance  which  made  turpentine  a  cure-all 
for  burns  and  made  childbirth  a  terror. 

A  hospital,  however  small,  would  change  all  that  and 
give  the  women  and  children  of  the  mountains  a  chance! 

Night  after  night,  as  he  sat  up  with  some  child  with 
membraneous  croup  in  a  bare,  cold  cabin;  as  he  brought  some 
baby  into  the  world  in  a  backwoods  shack,  Packard  thought 
of  that  hospital  and  what  it  would  do.  Day  after  day, 
too,  as  he  attended  the  clinics  he  had  established  in  six  of 
the  outlying  valleys — usually  at  Miss  Goodrich's  old  houses! 
— he  thought  of  it.  And  his  resolve  to  win  the  confidence 
of  these  people  grew  into  a  passion,  a  desire  that  was  always 
with  him.  He  never  prayed  for  assistance  in  some  hollow 
high  up  in  the  ridges  as  he  lanced  some  ugly,  black  leg  in 
the  hope  of  averting  blood  poisoning  and  losing  a  case,  that 
he  did  not  add  a  prayer  for  his  own  mission. 

Would  he  ever  be  able  to  break  down  the  wall  of  sus- 
picion? 

It  was  one  night  in  the  summer  that  the  answer  to  that 
question  came  at  last.  He  had  just  gotten  home  after  some 
thirty  miles  of  night  riding  and  work  when  a  man  brought 

14 


word  that  Jimmison  Tweed  lay  dying.  Jimmison  Tweed 
was  the  head  of  the  Tweed  family,  one  of  the  leading  men 
of  Laurel  and  the  mountains.  Packard  knew  that  as  he 
started  wearily  for  White  Rock.  He  knew,  too,  as  soon  as 
he  examined  him,  that  Jimmison  Tweed  lay  dying  of  ap- 
pendicitis. If  he  operated  for  appendicitis  before  this  crowd 
of  mountaineers  (there  was  always  a  crowd  around  the  doc- 
tor when  he  visited  a  patient),  and  Tweed  died  of  the  shock! 
— well,  his  work  in  these  mountains  would  be  over  forever, 
whether  he  lived  through  the  night  or  not. 

All  the  suspicion  against  "furriners"  and  "fotched-on" 
doctors,  the  hostility  of  the  generations  since  the  first  Tweed 
had  bought  his  farm  of  a  thousand  acres  for  ten  cents  an 
acre — all  this  would  fuse  into  one  flame  against  him  and 
destroy  the  confidence  of  Laurel  in  him  forever.  His  six 
months'  work  would  vanish  like  mist,  and  with  it  Miss 
Goodrich's  hopes. 

But  it  was  a  case  of  life  or  death,  and  an  operation  was 
the  only  chance  for  life.  So  he  operated.  He  performed  it 
in  the  light  from  the  big  lamps  from  the  village  church — the 
first  one  crashed  to  the  floor  from  its  beam  just  as  he  began, 
and  he  drove  a  huge  spike  to  hold  the  second  one! — he  did 
it  in  the  dim  cottage  on  the  bare  table,  with  the  preacher 
giving  the  ether,  while  the  Tweeds  crowded  every  window 
and  doorway.  Minute  after  minute  past  while  Jimmison 
Tweed  hung  on  to  his  life  and  Packard  hung  on  to  it  with 
him;  got  the  appendix  and  cut  it  out;  put  Jimmison  all 
back  into  place.  Then  he  staggered  out  into  the  darkness 
of  the  yard,  his  nerves  worn  with  the  strain,  but  in  his  mind 
the  knowledge  that  he  had  not  failed,  and  that  all  Laurel, 
for  once,  must  know  it.  They  had  seen  the  diseased  ap- 
pendix. 

Three  days  and  nights  Packard  sat.  by  that  bedside  until 
the  crisis  passed  and  the  old  man  was  out  of  immediate 
danger.  But  when,  on  the  third  day,  he  wearily  climbed  his 
horse,  he  had  won  the  heart  of  the  mountains.  And  when 
he  returned  and  stayed  until  all  danger  was  past,  Laurel 
had  given  its  confidence  forever. 

15 


Before  a  month  was  over,  Packard  knew  that  for  cer- 
tain— by  the  amount  of  calls  that  came  to  him!  But  it 
was  work  now  with  a  goal  that  flamed  always  in  sight. 
The  hospital  was  possible  now.  The  educational  work  that 
Miss  Goodrich  had  started  would  find  a  parallel  in  the  medi- 
cal work,  and  her  dream  of  long  ago  would  be  on  the  way  to 
realization.  He  had  made  good  in  the  mountains,  and  she 
had  a  partner.  Like  some  kind  of  Holy  Grail  to  a  Crusader 
of  old,  that  hospital  was  to  Dr.  Packard. 

It  was  never  out  of  his  mind  as  he  went  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  confidence  of  the  mountain  folk  and  became  not 
only  their  doctor  but  their  friend  and  adviser  as  well.  They 
say  in  the  hills  now  that  there  isn't  anything  Dr.  Packard 
hasn't  done  for  his  friends  of  Laurel,  from  operating  on 
cows  and  sows  whose  loss  would  have  meant  hunger,  to 
major  operations  on  injured  men  in  the  logging  camps,  far 
from  the  roads — places  where  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
ride  on  a  hand  car  while  the  lumber  men  pushed  him  far 
up  the  hills.  A  versatile  talent,  these  mountains  require! 
And  all  the  time  he  was  teaching  as  he  went,  not  only 
health  and  sanitation  and  good  cooking,  but  his  own  simple 
faith  in  God. 

Nor  was  Miss  Goodrich  idle.  Day  and  night  her  little 
group  of  workers  were  concentrating  on  the  hospital  plan, 
estimating  the  costs,  arguing  the  location,  but  she  herself 
was  launching  more  and  more  ambitious  appeals  to  the 
Board  of  Home  Missions  and  to  her  church  supporters  all 
over  the  North.  She  could  add  a  hospital  now,  if  she  could 
raise  the  money!  A  hospital  which  the  Board  could  run 
once  it  was  completed,  and  in  running  order  like  her  own 
work! 

By  the  time  five  acres  of  land  beneath  Sapling  Ridge 
had  been  given  by  Jimmison  Tweed  and  the  plans  and  cost 
of  the  building  estimated  and  completed,  in  city  after  city 
little  groups  of  women  and  children  had  begun  to  raise  the 
money — in  Sunday  schools,  and  Aid  Societies,  from  firms 
and   individuals.     In   White   Rock   itself  the   local   pastor 

16 


auctioned  off  the  thousand  feet  of  waterpipe  from  the  reser- 
voir on  top  of  the  mountain  down  to  the  hospital  itself — 
auctioned  it  off  foot  by  foot  so  that  every  man,  woman  and 
child  on  Laurel  could  have  a  share  with  Jimmison  Tweed 
in  the  new  Laurel  Hospital. 

And  almost  overnight,  so  it  seemed  to  the  valley,  the 
thing  was  accomplished,  and  under  the  shadow  of  the 
mountains,  just  above  the  last  community  house  built  by 
Miss  Goodrich,  the  white  hospital  building  stood,  to  sur- 
prise chance  visitors  who  rounded  the  shoulder  of  the  hills. 

In  the  clear  afternoon  Dr.  Packard  took  me  over  the 
place.  It  is  a  perfect  little  compact  hospital  of  its  kind, 
built  on  the  unit  plan — they  say  the  architect  did  not  make 
a  single  change  in  the  plans  which  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Packard 
had  drawn — with  wide  halls  and  beds  for  sixteen  patients 
at  a  time;  with  a  men's  ward  and  a  women's  ward,  big 
closets  filled  with  linen,  pajamas  and  all  the  things  devoted 
church  women  up  North  make  for  it  every  month.  There 
is  an  operating  room  to  make  the  heart  of  a  surgeon  glad. 
No  more  operating  on  kitchen  tables  by  lamplight  on  Laurel 
now,  with  that  room,  its  immaculate  instruments  and  elec- 
tric light,  and  nearby  the  showerbaths  and  the  closets  of 
bandages  all  sterilized.  When  the  exigencies  of  the  case 
require  it,  specialists  from  Asheville  can  be  accommodated 
with  all  they  need,  and  lives  saved  that  before  had  not  the 
slightest  chance. 

There  are  perfect  arrangements  downstairs,  too,  for  cook- 
ing and  serving  all  the  different  kinds  of  foods  which  hos- 
pital patients  require. 

"Yes,"  the  doctor  assured  me  with  a  twinkle,  "Mrs. 
Packard  attends  to  all  that.  Her  experience  in  Medford 
and  China  is  coming  in  handy  now.  I  could  never  have 
done  any  of  this  without  her,  or  without  the  devoted,  self- 
sacrificing  nurses  I  have  had — Miss  Mabel  Rich,  Miss  Har- 
rington and  Miss  Gardner,  and  the  rest — nurses  who  have 
worked  endlessly  and  faithfully  without  thought  of  such 
things  as  hours  or  remuneration." 

17 


There  was  a  kind  of  noblesse  oblige,  indeed,  I  found, 
among  the  workers  in  this  hospital  in  the  mountains — from 
the  retired  school  teacher  of  sixty  who  helps  Mrs.  Packard 
to  the  most  recent  nurse  who  usually  devotes  her  "time 
off"  to  pulling  teeth  in  the  big  dental  chair  for  stray  moun- 
taineers. 

"Why  not?"  she  replied  to  my  question.  "That's  what 
we  are  here  for!" 

Dr.  Packard  has  an  associate  doctor,  too,  now — Dr. 
E.  C.  Holden. 

"We  divide  our  time  so  that  someone  is  always  here," 
Dr.  Packard  told  me.  "W7hen  you  have  ridden  fifteen  miles 
over  these  mountains  to  get  the  doctor  or  to  bring  an  in- 
jured person  with  you,  you  don't  want  to  find  the  hospital 
dark  and  the  doctor  eighteen  miles  away  and  not  expected 
back  until  morning.  Dr.  Holden  has  taken  hold  in  fine 
style,  too.  We  call  him  the  Three-in-One  doctor,  because  he 
is  physician,  machinist  and  electrician.  You  have  to  be  a 
Jack-of-All-Trades  here." 

A  road  now  runs  all  the  way  from  White  Rock  to  Mar- 
shall. On  this  road,  opposite  the  hospital,  there  is  a  new 
white  schoolhouse  where  one  hundred  and  fifty  children 
will  be  taught  for  a  full  eight-month  term.  Three  teachers 
are  employed  for  the  full  time.  You  should  hear  the  chil- 
dren sing  their  "Keep  Well,  Keep  Strong"  song  set  to  the 
air  of  "Dixie."  They  have  hot  lunches  at  noon,  too — a 
result  achieved  largely  by  Mrs.  Packard. 

Dr.  Packard  has  his  eye  on  every  child.  They  come  over 
here  to  his  office  once  a  month  and  he  examines  them, 
weighs  them  and  treats  them  when  it  is  necessary.  The 
competition  in  order  to  gain  weight  is  like  a  World's  Series 
used  to  be  back  in  Boston.  Many  of  them  suffer  from  un- 
der-nourishment  still — that  is  the  curse  of  the  mountains — 
but  the  doctor  has  gotten  hold  of  them  now  and  won't  let 
go.     He  knows  their  parents  and  their  parents  know  him. 

I  slept  that  night  in  a  room  off  the  veranda,  by  the  front 
office  door.      I  had  been  up  with  Dr.  Packard  since  five  that 

18 


morning.  But  I  did  not  sleep  well.  I  had  confused  dreams 
in  which  whispering  voices  and  locomotive  whistles  mingled 
with  the  sound  of  horses'  hoofs. 

It  was  the  sharp  buzz  of  the  night  bell,  however,  re- 
sounding down  the  silent  hospital  halls,  that  got  me  up 
finally  to  grope  for  my  watch  and  to  notice  that  grey 
shadows  of  mist  filled  the  valley  at  this  hour  of  four-thirty. 
Down  by  the  fence,  several  horses  were  tied  and  I  could 
hear  voices.  I  dressed  and  went  out  and  found  Dr.  Pack- 
ard already  in  his  office,  filling  his  saddlebags  with  small 
packages. 

"A  new  case?"  I  inquired. 

"Several,"  he  said.  "They  usually  come  in  the  night, 
you  know.  The  first  was  a  bad  case  of  blood  posioning. 
The  second  an  operation  on  a  woman.  The  last  one  was 
a  fractured  leg  from  the  logging  camp.  The  husband  of 
the  woman  stole  the  logging  engine  and  brought  his  wife 
down  to  the  valley  on  that,  so  the  broken  leg  man  had  to 
come  on  a  hand  car.  Didn't  you  hear  the  whistle  about 
two  o'clock?" 

"But  who  owns  the  horses  outside?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  that's  the  case  I'm  going  on  now,"  he  said,  as  he  led 
the  way  out  to  the  broad  veranda.  "Another  baby  due 
over  on  Shelton  Laurel." 

"But  even  doctors  must  sleep,"  I  protested. 

His  grey  eyes  twinkled. 
"We  must  take  our  sleep  when  we  get  it,"  he  responded. 
"We  couldn't  rest  until  we  got  our  hospital  here.     And  now 
we  can't  rest  because  we  have  it!" 

And  he  mounted  his  horse,  waved  his  hand  and  rode  off 
around  the  bend  toward  Shelton  Laurel. 


OTHER  STORIES  OF 

Presbyterian  Home  Missionaries 


The  Mission  Nearest  the  North  Pole. 

An    account    of  the   Church   and  Hospital  at  Point 
Barrow,  Alaska. 


Charles  H.   Cook  By  Charles  L.  Thompson 

A  tale  of  romance  and  adventure   among    the  Pima 
Indians. 


Cleveland  Goes  on  an  Adventure. 

By  Francis  R.  Bellamy 
The  Story  of  Rev.  Joel  B.  Hayden's  Work 

Pathfinders  of  Civilization.       By  Fred  Eastman 
A  new  kind  of  missionary  work  on  the  Iron  Ranges 

The  University  of  the  Antilles. 

By  the  Editor  of  the  Sun  and  N.  Y.  Herald 

Motanic:  A  New  Kind  of  Indian  Story. 

By  Anne  Shannon  Monroe 


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